Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire

Great news! I still <3 Harry Potter. I have seen Harry Potter 4 a bazillion times but never on dvd or bluray. So huzah. This movie is super toll. I'm trying to think of anything to say about it and I can't. It's good. That's all I have for you. I can't even think of anything to criticize. Besides maybe Cho. Harry Potter is too good for hr. Oh also, Robert Pattinson is in this movie and he's not a vampire so that's fun right? He dies though. Sad times for Cedric Diggory. If Harry wasn't so selfless and just took the cup for himself he could have saved an innocent man's life. Oh Harry. Stay tuned for HP5 at some point!

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted was a pretty good video game, but it also would have made an excellent summer movie. It really felt like a modern day Indiana Jones flick from start to finish. Main character and Francis Drake descendant Nate had a cocky but likable swagger about him as he performed high-risk stunts, blew away hundreds of evil henchmen, and flirted with the tough but delicate female documentarian who came along for the ride on his latest adventure. Nate also had a wise-cracking older mentor-like sidekick in cigar-puffing Sully and a seedy-acting rival treasure hunter in Eddie. None of these characters ever showed any genuine emotion - fear, anguish, despair - aside from being on a general game-long adrenaline rush. No backstory was given for any pre-existing relationships, and no in-game progression helped develop any of them, either; if this had indeed been a summer action movie, it'd be panned mostly for having flat characters. But then, that'd be fine - people don't see summer action movies for the character relationships! Otherwise there'd be no reason to go see Fast Five tonight, and you can bet your ass I'm going to see Fast Five tonight. And of course, furthermore, this game isn't even a movie - it's a game! The Nathan Drake character has become the butt of plenty of Internet jokes about how lame and stale the current generation of video game heroes is. But it's not as if Mario and Link and Samus - a holy trinity of old school heroes - are fleshed out beyond a few simple generic traits like courage and stoicism. Is Nathan Drake the Dane Cook of video game protagonists? Sure. But that doesn't mean this was a shitty game. It was a great game! It wasn't a flawless game, but the parts that hampered it the most - excessive firefights and very occasional bad camera angles - were flaws in game design rather than in the characters or story. I wish there had been more puzzles and less gun play, but then, I guess I should just go play some more Tomb Raider games. I think most people who both read this blog and have a PS3 have already played this one, but for those of you who haven't, do yourself a favor and check it out. It was relatively short and easy (ten hours, and I never even thought to use a walkthrough) and I've been told the series only gets better in the sequel, which is likely the next game I'll try to remove from my backlog.

LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet is a game the BTown loves the shit out of, and so do a lot of other people. It's one of the killer exclusives for the PS3, and one of the first games I bought when I got my PS3. However, it doesn't seem like a great game for logging purposes- it's a platformer whose main emphasis is on customization, especially creating your own levels and uploading them for everyone to try. But as we all know, logging (in most cases) a game just involves getting through the main campaign as quickly as possible. And that's what I did here. The campaign is really nothing special, it's mostly a way to show off some interesting ideas that people can take in creating their own levels. There's 8 worlds of three levels each, each one with a theme of a different locale on Earth (is LittleBigPlanet not supposed to be Earth?)- the American southwest, Japanese temples, the African serengeti, and so on. Most of these levels were easy to breeze through, even the later ones, but two stuck out for being pretty difficult. One level in the American southwest called "The Mines" features a portion where you grab on to a rotating wheel and let it carry you over a gap- I was aware of the grabbing technique, but I can't remember them ever bringing up that you could grab on to some wheels, so I was understandably stuck at that part for a while. The second was the penultimate level, which ends with a giant rotating wheel of death where I had to guide my sackboy from the center all the way out. You get four tries at each checkpoint to get to the next one, or else you have to restart the level- this part had me restarting the level 6 or 7 times. But no big deal. I finished it off, then beat the final level and an easy boss and just like that the game was logged. I know I should try out some random user-created levels, but I've got more PS3 games to play- plus the sequel to LittleBigPlanet is already out, I'll try user-created levels when I beat that.

Treasure Island

Going in, I should have been pretty familiar with this story. I saw Muppet Treasure Island as a kid some fifteen years ago. My fifth grade class used Treasure Island for a play that I was part of. And at some point I had definitely even read a dumbed down kids' version of the story. But in spite of all of this - or perhaps because of all of this - when I picked up Treasure Island a week ago I had little to no recollection of most of the characters and actions I was reading about. So the story was kind of new to me all over again. And it's a good, timeless classic of a story. No complaints about Robert Louis Stevenson's writing this time around, either, unlike in my post about his famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde novella. This was just a simple but enjoyable and relatively short (200 pages) book. But Treasure Island is a classic for reasons that go beyond its own limited scope and greatness; it's one of those archetype-defining pieces of fiction that creates (or at least popularizes) so many tropes. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest." Parrots as pirate pets. Treasure maps where X marks the spot. Marooning and mutiny. The list goes on and on, and so many of these pirate tropes that we take for granted today (and that Disney has built a recent successful movie trilogy on) were actually first put into literature, and hence popular culture, by Stevenson in this very book. It's that legacy that makes Treasure Island iconic; on its own merit, it's really no better than The Dark Frigate.

House: Season 6

So, I've been doing really well in terms of hitting my monthly backlog goals. All books (and two extras) and all video games are accounted for, leaving me with nothing but two seasons of HBO television. So why, then, have I spent the last few weeks watching House? I've got no legitimate reason. But then, is reason ever required when it comes to plowing away through one's backlog? Anyway, as I said just over a year ago in my review of Season 5, "Unfortunately, the great finale only made it necessary for Season 6 to start off terribly (no spoilers, but trust me), one of several factors that led me to stop watching House midway through this year." And I stand by the opening statement and the decision; Season 6 did start terribly and it was well worth my time to kick the show to the curb for the second semester of my college senior year. We begin with two episodes of Dr. House in a mental institution, trying to quit his Vicodin addiction cold turkey, once and for all. And boy, does the show suffer because of it. The institution segments with House were boring. The hospital segments without him felt lacking. And even when House finally comes back to the hospital, he's still got to wait around a while before his medical license gets reinstated. So we get a "nice" stretch of several episodes in which House is just hanging around acting petulant while his former diagnostic team sort of struggles without him, but only in the same way they would be struggling with him at the helm anyway. Then there's yet another sloppy main character send off that feels unrealistic, sudden, and silly - a House trademark in recent years, it seems. And the writers get just a little bit too "meta" for comfort, as House drops a terribly forced Mike Tomlin reference near Foreman (played by Tomlin lookalike Omar Epps) and says, of Dr. Hadley, "It's not like she's the hottest woman in the world," a clear reference to the fact that Olivia Wilde had just been bestowed that very honor by Maxim. Once House returned to the diagnostic team and assembled his best crew - a combination of his older crew and his more recent crew - there were a few dull and uninteresting procedural episodes. At that point, I was done for the year. But I'm glad I bought and watched the DVDs (as if there was ever any doubt that I would), because Season 6 began to gather momentum only a few episodes beyond the point I had stopped watching over a year ago. There were a few episodes that broke the formulaic routine that House (like any network procedural) so often employs. Even those standard procedural episodes, however, began to trend upward in terms of overall quality. At least, that's my own personal opinion. The season ended on an extremely high note, too, with an effective form-breaking penultimate episode and an intense and shocking finale that pushed both Hugh Laurie's acting and Dr. House's character development further than I'd ever seen either go. So, thankfully, I am in fact looking forward to Season 7 and however many come after it. Apparently the show may change networks next year for Season 8 - could be reason enough for me to jump back in. But probably not. We'll see how long it takes me to buy and watch Season 7. If I end up doing so this summer, then yes, I'll probably be looking to catch up in time for Season 8. But then, what's wrong with waiting for the DVDs once again? Speaking of which, I just remembered - I still have to watch the fourth and final season of Heroes. Blech.

Harry Potter 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban

If you know anything about me, you should know this. I post in bulk. I’m awful at posting when I finish the book, movie, tv show, or video game (jeez who plays those? Not me judging by this blog).

If you are at all intuitive, and you know what, I have faith that you are, you will realize that I would have posted HP3 The Prisoner of Azkaban sometime soon. The great news for you is that time is now.

This was one of my favorite books, and I think the movie did it justice. Harry Potter starts to come into his own as an actor here and he seems to age a lot between HP2 and HP3. Hermione and Ron still have a little growing up to do. I do think Emma Watson is the best actor out of the three though. This movie also has one of my personal favorite characters Lupin who I think is pretty great in the movie as well. It also introduces the scary dementors which are portrayed well in the movie. AKA they are freaking scary. That’s all!

Harry Potter 2: The Chamber of Secrets

So, I heart Harry Potter. I’ve read the books too many times, and I watch the movies anytime they are on HBO or ABC Family is having a marathon. BUT, I have never owned the movie. Thus, I have never officially had it in my backlog. So you would think, judging by this post, that I now have it. But I only sort of have it because it’s Steve’s, but I really wanted to do the posting on this one. So I’m gonna. Deal with it.

Before HP1, I was like “ugh, can’t I just get the first three movies over with so I can watch the best mover ever HP4” I was wrong though. The first movies are still good! HP2 provides you with your last glimpses of Dumbledore 1. I don’t think there is too big of a difference. Some disagree, but oh well. You also begin finding out a little about Voldermort’s past aka Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry also pulls a sword out of an old hat. Good times follow.

Enjoyable, but the actors are still young and coming into their roles. That’s all I have for you.

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill

Book 3 of the Alex Cross series, commence! Also, I believe this is a good opportunity to add that James Patterson also writes the currently underground, in the future, hugely popular, Maximum Ride series where we see bird people become the next new vampire craze.

Anywho, this book chronicles Alex Cross’ search for not one but three killers! One killer is brutally murdering children in his very neighborhood at his childrens’ school. This is the case he would love to stay on, but the higher ups put his brilliant mind on the Jack and Jill case who are committing perfect high profile crimes again celebrities and politicians in DC, with the end goal being Mr and Mrs White House.

Wanna know the ending? The continue! It turns out that the children killer is actually a child himself with a severe mental problem. In a final stand off, he kills Cross’ “lady love’s” husband. I’m sure this will set up a budding relationship with her in the next book. If you remember, his last lady love turned out to be the bad guy (bad luck). The Jack and Jill case still puzzles them. The president is attacked and killed, and the “killer” commits suicide. But wait, a clever ruse! This is not the actual killer but someone who the killer told to do the killing. Plot twist yo. Anyways, turns out the killer is an FBI agent and her husband who have been working on the case. Oops. They go to prison and both die mysteriously the next die leaving the case unresolved.

Oh! Important footnote. Cross receives a call from Gary Soneji at the end of the book, the super villain from the first book who escaped from prison and has it out for Cross. Will we see him in the next book? I think yes. (I know yes. I am currently reading it. I’m a cheater.)

Over and out

Seeing

With a sizable chunk of my booklog taken care of already this year, I recently started to explore some options on my Kindle. I went on a shopping spree, acquiring over twenty books and a lot of other potentially unbloggable stuff. A number of these books came from a steal I found- 12 novels by Jose Saramago for $20. I posted Blindness last summer and was a fan, and had interest in at least two other books of Saramago's, so I didn't hesitating in making this huge but cheap purchase, after which I immediately started into Seeing, the sequel to Blindness. For those who don't remember, the plot to Blindness is fairly simple- blindness suddenly and inexplicably starts spreading like a disease in a city in Portugal, leading to complete chaos within a few days. Seeing takes place four years later in that same city, people can see again, and it's election day. After all of the ballots are counted up, 70% of them are found to be completely blank. After a stern warning by the government and an impromptu second attempt at an election, even more ballots are left blank the second time. With this the president basically tells the city "shame on you" and the entire government up and leaves the capital city. This setup was similar to Blindness- take a normal, familiar place, introduce a strong gimmick, be it inexplicable blindness or equally inexplicable tremendous voter apathy, and let the story write itself. Nothing that happened in Blindness was too surprising, but it's at times brutal or beautiful and worked very well as a story. Unfortunately Seeing doesn't work nearly as well. You see (ha!), for the entirety of Seeing up to this point, there have been only vague references to the plague of blindness that affected the city four years ago, and I had no problem with that. Seeing seemed to be more of a thematic sequel to Blindness than a direct one. But halfway through the story takes a conspiracy turn- members of the government find out about the one person who could see during the blindness epidemic, and stop at nothing to make him a scapegoat for the current voting crisis. It was a pretty abrupt turn that definitely made me like the book less- what started out with great potential as a criticism of the very idea of 'politics' turned into a slightly more generic thriller. The second half still did have its merits though- checking in on some of the old characters was nice, and the troubled superintendent who becomes the protagonist in the second half may have been the most interesting of any character in either book; still though, I can't help but feel more could have been done to make the two parts connect. I mean, by the second half the question of why people suddenly voted for no one is dropped completely. While Seeing certainly had its share of flaws and wasn't nearly as good as Blindness, I still found it to be an enthralling read and have no problem with the fact that ten more Saramago books exist in my backlog.

Counter-Strike

About a year ago I got a little too invested in the "top [X number] video games of the decade" lists circulating the Internet and decided I needed to play (and more so, own) a number of them. I ended up spending hundreds of dollars in April and May on like two dozen games and my backlog has been exceptionally bloated ever since. Whatever. Today, I crossed this one off my list. Counter-Strike started out as a home-brewed Half-Life mod in 1999 but quickly became so popular that Valve decided to officially incorporate it into the Half-Life franchise and hired its two creators as full-time developers. But the game quickly took on a culture of its own, completely separate from that of Half-Life, and eventually Valve decided to split it off into its own family of games and expansion packs. So when the game was ported to the original Xbox in 2004, it was not done so as Half-Life: Counter-Strike, but simply as Counter-Strike, seen above. I purchased my own copy new for something like eight bucks on Amazon a year back, and now that I've played "through" it, I can see why Amazon had slashed the price so low. Note my use of quotation marks around the word "through." Note them again. The thing is, Counter-Strike was always meant to be a multi-player game in which counter-terrorist teams (CTU, if you use 24 acronyms) oppose terrorist squads up to no good. The terrorists are either trying to plant a bomb somewhere or holding hostages - seriously, those are the only two game types, at least on this port - and the CT forces must stop them from doing so. What makes the game unique, or at least original, in the FPS genre is that matches are quick and there is no regeneration or "re-spawning" once you die. If the terrorists kill you, you're dead until the next round begins - which thankfully is usually within a minute or two. I like that. It adds an element of realism to coming up with actual tactics and strategies. More important than killing is staying alive. I suspect that's a lot like real war, whereas in a ten-minute Halo session you can die twenty times and still call it a good match as long as you had twenty-five kills. In Counter-Strike, you're much more likely to attack from adequate cover and to communicate with teammates to set up cover fire and lay traps for enemies. It seems like it'd be a lot of fun to play with a group of friends. But I'll never know, because the servers for the Xbox version of the game have been taken down for good and the only company I was able to play with this afternoon were AI bots. So I did both tutorial modes and then played through around ten rounds of planting and disarming the bomb, and that about wraps it up. There is no single-player campaign and no story mode to speak of. I'm melancholy about missing the boat on this game when you could actually play it with other people, but I mean, at least my video game backlog got smaller in practically no time at all.